Austin Allison, 4th Ward city council candidate, Humboldt County new-comer, and progressive puppet extraordinaire, announced his intent to do whatever-the-hell Allen McCloskey and the progressive powers that be in a cute little campaign party this week. (Not to be confused with the time he got multiple current Council members to sign his candidacy papers while posing for the cameras on City property, which is of questionable legality concerning you can’t campaign on City property.)

What did he have to say? Well, nothing interesting. (That’s not his fault – should he be elected, he’ll be in good company with the rest of the City council who also don’t know a damn thing.) Allison is a wonderful poster child for political candidates thrust into the race solely for the purpose of being exploited by the parties and people who want to dictate his policy decisions.. We kinda feel bad for the kid, too.

But it’s the HCDCC’s endorsement that really speaks the loudest to THC. Compound their support of Allison with their support of Measure P – the initiative to create a true ward system in Eureka – and we can boil their interests down to a very simple point: the HCDCC, and progressives, are making a hard push to wipe out any semblance of opposing ideologies in the City.

While the HCDCC says Measure P is aimed at creating a more equal election process by being more inclusive, and that Measure P’s passage would create a more equal playing field, THC must beg to differ.

Last we counted, there’s already a progressive majority on the City Council. (Which has been no more effective than the previous and more conservative Council, it must be noted.) So…just what under-represented sector is Measure P supposed to help?

THC personally thinks it’s great for the entire City to be able to elect all of their representatives. Is that not a more accurate reflection . True ward systems may be more representative of the population in large metropolitan areas, like Los Angeles, but true ward is ill-suited to Eureka. The city simply doesn’t have the population to justify the idea that people who want to vote are not having their voices heard or are not having an impact on elections.

Nope, Measure P is, plain and simple, an HCDCC and progressive power play to have even more control over Eureka. And that’s fine – it’s what politics are really all about, after all.

But don’t be fooled when the HCDCC says Measure P is designed to take “big money” out of local politics; as THC has discussed before, the HCDCC is big money in politics.